Shiritori (しりとり) is a Japanese word game in which the players are required to say a word which begins with the final kana of the previous word.
No distinction is made between hiragana, katakana and kanji.
"Shiritori", literally means "taking the bottom" as Japanese language can be written vertically.

• Two or more people take turns to play.
• Only nouns are permitted.
• A player who plays a word ending in the mora N (ã‚“) loses the game, as no word begins with that character.
• Words may not be repeated
• Phrases connected by no (の) are permitted, but only in those cases where the phrase is sufficiently fossilized to be considered a "word".

Example: sakura (さくら) → rajio (ラジオ) → onigiri (おにぎり) → risu (りす) → sumou (すもう) → udon (うどん)

The player who played the word "udon" lost this game.

There are various optional and advanced rules, which must be agreed on before the game begins.